CFP: This is the Pleasant Land - Heritage and the Environment

From H-Museum:

Call for Papers
SIN AM FEARANN CAOIN*
This is the Pleasant Land
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK
June 20th to June 22nd 2007, with optional excursions on June 23rd

A Conference on 'Heritage and the Environment' jointly organised by SabhalMòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye and Heritage Futures, Glasgow Caledonian University

Landscape and the environment are critical concepts and realities of contemporary culture and politics. To be better understood requires scrutiny of 'the past' incorporating multiple sources of evidence and deepening insights. What are these insights and how will they inform perceptions, decisions and actions of the present and the future? Taking as inspiration the rich and unique resource of Gaelic culture to develop innovative and challenging discourses, this conference will be held in the Isle of Skye, a setting that will provide inspiration and direction for the discussions. Gaelic culture is uniquely placed to deepen our understanding by offering important insights and fresh perspectives drawing on an enormously expanded body of evidence. Importantly this will allow the role of people to be highlighted and will locate them within their landscape. The reconsideration and re-examination of Gaelic sources offers a distinctive view of Scottish history which will seek to move away from traditional assumptions and challenge current popular perceptions of Gaelic culture.This conference will examine the role of the environment and give fresh insights into the relationship of people and the environment. Both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary conversations will occur across traditional subject areas and in a variety of contexts. Underlying these ideas will be the consideration of how Gaelic culture, both tangible and intangible, will add significantly to larger discourses of landscape and the environment. In a departure from conventional approaches we are keen to explore these issues from the widest possible perspective acknowledging both the particular and the universal.

Call for Papers
Papers are now invited for presentation at the conference. A number of themes are offered to help direct initial thoughts, and international keynote speakers will be invited to introduce some of the key themes and to stimulate discussion. These include (but are not limited to):
* people and livelihood;
* ownership and occupation;
* symbolism and tradition;
* language, literature and song;
* settlement and migration;
* trade;
* home and leisure;
* memory, representation and interpretation.

Papers are welcomed from a wide variety of disciplines from all areas of thearts, humanities and sciences and are encouraged in both Gaelic and English. An abstract of 500 words with contact details, should be submitted by 30 November 2006 to Fiona McLean, Heritage Futures, Glasgow CaledonianUniversity, Buchanan House, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA, Scotland, UK. Or by e-mail attachment to fmc2@gcal.ac.uk <mailto:fmc2@gcal.ac.uk>

Authors will be notified if their papers have been successful by 15 December2006. A preliminary programme will be available on the conference web site from 20 February 2007, with the final programme available on 1 May 2007. It is intended that the proceedings from the conference will be published online, and the best papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the 'International Journal of Heritage Studies'.

Venue
The conference will be held at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in the Isle of Skye, Scotland from 20th to 22nd June, 2007. On the 21st June, an excursion has been organised to the Highland Folk Museum at Newtonmore, where a number of the themes raised at the conference will be addressed, particularly representation and interpretation. There will also be an opportunity on 23rd June to visit some of the sites which will be under discussion, including the Isles of Canna and Raasay, the Knoydart peninsula, and locations within the Isle of Skye.

For further details about the conference please contact either Fiona McLean(fmc2@gcal.ac.uk ), Mary-Cate Garden (mga6@gcal.ac.uk ), or Hugh Cheape(H.Cheape@nms.ac.uk <mailto:H.Cheape@nms.ac.uk> ). For details about the venue and accommodation and to register for the conference please go to the conference web site at: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/mce2007/index.php

* Taken from 'Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain' by Duncan Ban Macintyre c1765

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